CATAPULT: "California Title 24 Advanced Power Utilization Technology"
In 2022 the project validated software functionality, equipment assembly and factory testing is in progress.
BoxPower Inc.
Recipient
Grass Valley, CA
Recipient Location
1st
Senate District
1st
Assembly District
$685,209
Amount Spent
Active
Project Status
Project Update
In 2022, the project team tested and validated the functionality of the software platform and completed assembly of the major hardware components for the fifteen residential energy storage demonstration systems. At the end of 2022 the project team began factory testing of the first five fully assembled energy storage systems. During 2023, the team completed fabrication of the full fleet of 15 solar+battery residential microgrids. The team also completed development of the software interface and control functionality modes within the Modular Intelligent Energy Management System (MIEMS) tool. The team tested the implementation of the software and hardware as a combined stack in a warehouse/factory test environment, with operations proceeding as planned. In 2023, the team also began the process of building permit applications and interconnection agreements for the purposes of installing the fleet of 15 residential solar+battery microgrids at residences throughout various zones within the state of CA. In 2024, BoxPower will install the 15 systems and begin the Measurement and Verification phase.
The Issue
The new Title 24 building standards require solar on new residential construction, paving the way for even greater solar deployment in California. At the same time, wildfires and public safety power shutoffs are creating greater interest in residential energy storage systems. There is a need to identify how solar+storage can provide value to homeowners and whether these systems can also provide grid value. Additionally, demonstrations will inform the best approaches for implementing solar+storage and may inform future changes to Title 24 standards.
Project Innovation
This project will demonstrate a modular containerized solar plus energy storage system at fifteen residential customer sites. The project will demonstrate the system performance as an integrated hardware and software platform that is Title 24 compliant with the ability to provide: behind the meter customer energy cost savings; emissions savings; grid services; and resiliency during utility power outages. The data obtained on capital cost, operating cost, performance and lessons learned will support commercial deployment.
Project Goals
Project Benefits
This project will develop new hardware and software integration solutions to demonstrate and validate the cost and performance of solar plus storage systems in residential behind the meter applications. The system will be able to be configured to integrate the energy storage adjacent to the home with new or existing rooftop solar. It can also be configured as a stand-alone solar plus storage unit that can be placed in the yard. The project will also develop a software platform for aggregating the distributed solar plus storage systems to provide grid services that can be dispatched like a single resource.
Affordability
This project will demonstrate the solar plus energy storage technology and validate customer energy bill cost savings. The cost and performance data collected through this demonstration project will advance the technology readiness and support commercialization; leading to manufacturing scale-up and lower cost product offerings. Where space is available, the stand-along configuration could be an even lower cost application.
Reliability
This project will demonstrate solar plus energy storage technology in residential behind the meter applications. This project will develop hardware and software platforms to facilitate enhanced systems integration, both within individual system deployments and within the management of the fleet of systems to facilitate greater reliability of the systems’ interaction with the utility grid.
Energy Security
The project will demonstrate customer energy security by providing resiliency in a grid outage.
Key Project Members
Alex Cavoli
Subrecipients
Evergreen Innovations LLC
Match Partners
BoxPower Inc.
Evergreen Innovations LLC
